Elder Jose

March 29, 2010

So I was able to participate in one of the largest Baptisms the mission has had in a couple years last Tuesday. I mentioned Christi in last week’s e-mail, but she was only one of the six that were baptized. There were four children, Tyler and Beth Roggie and Kyle and Jackie George. (I baptized Beth and Kyle) Tyler and Beth's mom is a member, but we are still working on the Dad. Kyle and Jackie's Mom Wants to be baptized, but she will have to wait until she quits smoking. Cross your fingers and say a prayer for her, she is going to quit on the 1st of April. Then some missionaries in a nearby ward baptized another Kyle, He is 19 and was introduced to the church by his girlfriend. His whole family is Catholic and didn't want him to be baptized, but they still showed up to show support. He said it was funny, he said "I had three people sitting next to me that didn't want me to go through with it. Then I looked behind me and saw about 150 people that wanted me to do it." It was a very large baptism with a very large turnout, including the Mission President and 9 missionaries that had just stepped off the plane 4 hours before coming to the baptism.
Beth was really afraid of the crowd, she was hiding for about 15 minutes before the program started, then we found her and started the service, then she went back into hiding. We found her minutes before we started baptizing and baptized her, then she went back into hiding. Needless to say I was pretty nervous because I was supposed to baptize her.
What a neat experience.
Saturday and Sunday are conference. So remember I will be watching it at the same time you will be watching it. I Love you guys. Talk to you next week.

March 22, 2010

The baptisms We were planning to have got moved to tomorrow night, but we added another to the list of people getting baptized.
Get this for a missionary experience... We have a Chiropractor in our ward and Elder Stevens has very bad Scoliosis so we go there often for weekly adjustments. (He also adjusts me as well for good measure.) Anyways as were were walking into his room, we passed a patient sitting in another doctors office, and she exclaimed "Is that the Mormon Boys?" we walked in and explained that we were. and asked if we could answer some questions for her after our visit. So Elder Stevens and I got adjusted and then went and spoke with her. She asked us to explain the trinity which we did simply. Afterward she asked if we could meet with her another time. A few days later we met with her in a nearby park and discussed Joseph Smith and our beliefs. She seemed a little disinterested when we left her that day. She said she would call us if she wanted to learn more, and we didn't expect her to.
Two days later we got a call from her asking if she we could take it to the church so she could find it herself on Sunday, she also wanted to discuss more there. We set up a church tour with some of the nearby sister missionaries. The sisters really hit it off with her at the tour and took over teaching her. That was last Wednesday. Tomorrow she will be baptized along with four of our other investigators. Needless to say, we are very excited.
Hopefully the Lord is blessing you there as much as he is blessing us here. I love you all .
Elder Jose.

March 15, 2010

Well good news and bad news. Bad news is that we didn't baptize Tyler on Saturday. The good news is that we will be baptizing him on the 23rd along with 4 others including his sister and his next door neighbors family, I would say it's a fair trade. We have been getting a bit of rain here. Fortunately I have a nice rain coat and a nice Mazda 3 to ride around in. I really felt blessed when I traded places with another Elder in a bike area for a day and forgot my rain coat... oops. Fortunately I survived. I don't have much more to write about I just wanted to let you know I appreciate your E-mails. They make me happy because I love you guys.
Love Elder Jose

March 8, 2010

This last week seemed to whiz by. I am not quite sure what major events have happend.
It's funny that you guys all went bowling we actually went a few weeks ago. I hope you guys had as much fun as we did.
Anyway , some crazy lady tried to steal my companions Book of Mormon and throw it away, while we were out tracting, calling it "garbage" (It made me want to throw up when she said it.) Fortunately I was able to get it back from her and it was put to better use in the hands of someone who will read it. The Book of Mormon contains the words of Christ, which lead to eternal life. Anyone who has read it knows it is not evil, and most certainly not gabage.
It made me think if we really appreciate it or know how much it's worth. I hope you all study the Book of Mormon often and learn to love it.
Love Elder Jose.